se in your own bosom?"

"I know I am a fool; but my folly is dear to me, and I would not cure it
if I could."

The quiet determination of Gaston's tone convinced Louis that all
remonstrances would be unavailing.

Yet he remained the same in his manner and behavior, apparently
engrossed in pleasure parties; but, in reality, his only thought was the
mail. He always managed to be at the door when the postman came, so that
he was the first to receive his brother's letters.

When he and Gaston were out together at the time of the postman's visit,
he would hurry into the house first, so as to look over the letters
which were always laid in a card-basket on the hall table.

His watchfulness was at last rewarded.

The following Sunday, among the letters handed to him by the postman,
was one bearing the postmark of Beaucaire.

He quickly slipped it into his pocket; and, although he was on the point
of mounting his horse to ride with Gaston, he said that he must run up
to his room to get something he had forgotten; this was to gratify his
impatient desire to read the letter.

He tore it open, and, seeing "Lafourcade" signed at the bottom of three
closely written pages, hastily devoured the contents.

After reading a detailed account of events entirely uninteresting to
him, Louis came to the following passage relating to Valentine:

"Mlle. de la Verberie's husband is an eminent banker named Andre Fauvel.
I have not the honor of his acquaintance, but I intend going to see him
shortly. I am anxious to submit to him a project that I have conceived
for the benefit of this part of the country. If he approves of it, I
shall ask him to invest in it, as his name will be of great assistance
to the scheme. I suppose you have no objections to my referring him to
you, should he ask for my indorsers."

Louis trembled like a man who had just made a narrow escape from death.
He well knew that he would have to fly the country if Gaston received
this letter.

But though the danger was warded off for the while, it might return and
destroy him at any moment.

Gaston would wait a week for an answer, then he would write again;
Lafourcade would instantly reply to express surprise that his first
letter had not been received; all of this correspondence would occupy
about twelve days. In those twelve days Louis would have to think over
some plan for preventing Lafourcade's visit to Paris; since, the instant
he mentioned the name of Cla